Highlights from the 2018 General Assembly

Jeffrey F. Caruso, executive director of the Virginia Catholic Conference, testifies in opposition to SB907 in front of the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee in Richmond last month. Virginia Catholic Conference | Courtesy

While legislators considered nearly 4,000 bills and resolutions
during the 60-day 2018 Virginia General Assembly session, the Virginia Catholic
Conference focused its efforts on legislation to protect the vulnerable and
ensure the common good.

The staff will continue to urge protections for the unborn, the
sick and others in need when legislators meet to hammer out a two-year budget
plan at an upcoming special session.

Life-sustaining treatment: Conference
participation in a two-year workgroup culminated in the passage of patient and
health worker protections when conflicts arise regarding course of treatment.
The conference-supported legislation includes strong protections for
administration of artificial hydration and nutrition. It awaits the governor’s
action.

Death penalty: The conference
supported banning death sentences for people with severe mental illnesses when
they committed their crimes. The legislation did not advance, but a committee
requested the issue be studied.

Public safety:The conference called
for universal background checks for firearm transfers, but all six proposals
failed in committee. Conference-supported proposals to implement risk warrants,
which would have enabled judges to temporarily suspend gun rights of
individuals posing serious threats to themselves or others, also failed.

Religious liberty and institutional concerns

Health plan mandates: A top conference
priority was stopping six bills that would have imposed controversial health plan
mandates. All were defeated in committee. One would have forced unprecedented
requirements on employers with religious and moral objections to covering
contraceptives. Others, together, would have mandated coverage of
contraceptives, sterilizations, gender-transition services, abortion-inducing
drugs and some surgical abortions.

Marriage beliefs: Conference-opposed
bills — defeated in committee — would have created causes of action against
faith-based providers for following their beliefs about marriage and sexuality.
Together, these measures would have added “sexual orientation” and “gender
identity” to existing anti-discrimination criteria for housing, employment and
other areas.

Weapons in places of worship:
Virginia law restricts guns and other weapons at places of worship during
religious gatherings, unless the carrier has a "good and sufficient
reason." Conference-opposed legislation, which shifted the burden to
places of worship to keep weapons off their property by express communication,
passed the Senate but ultimately failed.

Low-income workers:The conference
continued pushing to make Virginia’s earned-income credit refundable for the
lowest-income families, but the bill stalled.

Lending practices:
Conference-supported legislation would have regulated internet lenders and
capped consumer finance loans at 36 percent APR. After passing the Senate, it
died in a House subcommittee.

Immigrants

Community safety: Conference-opposed
legislation purporting to crack down on “sanctuary cities” would jeopardize
trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement and threaten the
willingness of crime victims and witnesses to come forward. It narrowly passed
and awaits the governor’s action.

Transportation and education: The conference
worked to expand immigrants’ access to driving privileges and in-state tuition
through bills and budget amendments, but those measures failed.

At-risk students

Pre-K: The conference supported
legislation to expand Virginia’s Education Improvement Scholarships Tax Credits
program to include pre-K students. Thousands of low-income K-12 students
receive financial assistance to attend Catholic and other nonpublic schools
under the program. The bill would have expanded opportunities to low-income
pre-K children, especially where public school options are unavailable. It
passed the Senate but failed in a tie vote in a House committee.

Student discipline: Following years
of advocacy, modest versions of conference-supported reforms of inequitable and
overly punitive public school suspension policies passed and await the governor’s
action.